Biography

Michael Von Korff, ScD, has carried out groundbreaking research on the management and outcomes of chronic pain, depression, and other illnesses in primary care settings. His work as an epidemiologist and health services researcher focuses on understanding how patients adapt to chronic illnesses associated with pain and psychological distress, including how they use health care services and medicines, and how they cope with illness in their daily lives.

Dr. Von Korff is also working on the Team-Based Opioid Management project, which is funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The project provides a public website with dozens of resources and tools that support safer opioid prescribing. Its centerpiece is the “Six Building Blocks”—the core components of safe, team-based opioid prescribing that have been implemented successfully in primary care settings across the country.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Von Korff co-led a series of major randomized trials examining various approaches to chronic illness management in primary care, including collaborative care for depression and interventions to improve self-care of chronic-recurrent back pain. A major focus throughout his career has been studying mental-physical comorbidity and how patients manage distressing physical symptoms. This research has included a series of longitudinal studies of disability and health care use among primary care patients with depression, back pain, headache, and other chronic pain conditions.

Dr. Von Korff co-founded Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, an organization that has effectively advocated nationally for more cautious and selective opioid prescribing. He has published more than 350 papers in peer-reviewed journals on chronic pain, mental health, chronic illness, and disability. In 1997, he was selected as a fellow of AcademyHealth and of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. In 2002, the Institute for Scientific Information recognized him as one of the nation’s most highly cited scientists in psychiatry and behavioral sciences. He has served as an advisor to major global mental health studies conducted by the World Health Organization. He also served as KPWHRI’s Associate Director for Research from 1992 to 1996 and again from 1999 to 2005.